Abstract

Over the last twenty years or so, a number of increasingly complex joint simulatorshave been developed and manufactured to evaluate new designs of total joint replacement. Thishas been in response both to the greater understanding of joint biomechanics and the increase inregulatory and pre-clinical testing required by law to ensure patient safety and product reliability.Upon simulation of this clinically relevant wear it is important that it can be accurately quantifiedand assessed. Furthermore it is vital to be able to assess whether in vitro produced componentwear is representative of true clinical wear, in order to audit the capability of the laboratorytesting to replicate real-world patient relevant conditions. To achieve this methods have beendeveloped to accurately quantify in vivo total joint replacement wear from retrieved total hipreplacement components. This paper explores two methods for determination of such clinicalwear and discusses the relative advantages of using each. To do this a number of retrieved totalhip replacement acetabular components were assessed for both volumetric and linear wear usingpreviously developed shadowgraph and co-ordinate measurement techniques and the resultsreported and compared.